Villarreal host Liverpool in the 2^nd leg of their Champions League semi-final on Tuesday and the home team need to claw back two goals on the English giants.

Let’s start with a look at the Outright Betting of the two semi-final 2^nd legs and here we have Liverpool trading as 9/10 favourites ahead of Manchester City at 12/10. You can get 10/1 Real Madrid and 50/1 Villarreal.

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Liverpool justified 1/3 favouritism at home in the 1^st leg, but not before they were given a real battle by the visitors. Two goals between the 50^th and 60^th minute were eventually enough to give Liverpool a handy cushion heading to Spain.

Villarreal had previously seen off Bayern Munich in the quarter-final by a 2-1 aggregate winning the home leg 1-0 and in the last 16 they also faced the European giants in Juventus winning 4-1 on aggregate. Villarreal lost 2-1 away to Alaves in the League on the weekend, but they no doubt had one eye on this fixture.

Liverpool beat Benfica 6-4 on aggregate in their quarter-final and the damage was done in the 1^st leg when they won 3-1 on the road. The same could be said for their last 16 clash against Inter where they opened with a 2-0 victory in Italy before losing the 2^nd leg 1-0 at home. Liverpool won all 3 of their away matches in the group stages in what was a fairly tough group and in the League on the weekend they overcame a game Newcastle side 1-0 on the road to maintain the pressure on Manchester City in the title race. Liverpool have not conceded a goal in their last 4 matches in all competitions.

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BETTING – Click here to bet

Villarreal 7/2

Draw 16/5

Liverpool 8/11

Suggested bet: Over 3.5 goals at 13/8

Being two goals behind starting the leg, I think Villarreal are going to have to start gambling fairly early and this in turn should open up opportunities for Liverpool to hit them on the counter attack.

While the first fixture between the pair was a cagey affair with Villarreal really playing from the outset for a 0-0 draw or to perhaps nick a 1-0 victory, this should be a much more fluent fixture and I am expecting plenty of goals.

Other markets of interest include, both teams to score here, YES, at 7/10 and in the correct score market I quite fancy the 2-2 draw at 12/1. Looking at the first goal scorer markets how about a bit of Sadio Mane to score at 11/2.

Note: All prices correct at the time of writing but are subject to change